Retiring army ombudsman reveals IDF's 'deepest secret'

Yitzhak Brick asserts IDF is severely unprepared for war. 'If there's a war, the trauma of Yom Kippur will feel like a walk in the park.'

Arutz Sheva Staff, 09/01/19 22:58

Yitzhak Brick

Flash 90

Gen. (res.) Yitzhak Brick, the IDF ombudsman who retired today, warned that the IDF is deliberately closing its eyes to its lack of preparedness for war.

"If there is a war, the trauma of Yom Kippur will be a walk in the park in comparison," Brick said in an interview with Kan 11.

He added, "We are building the army into a situation where it can give an answer to two threats: Lebanon and Gaza. There seems to have been a change in the Middle East, the Syrians have returned. The main threat that has not been taken into consideration is near us. Our army is built for a region-and-a-half. How do you build an army without taking changes in the Middle East into consideration? It's irresponsible at a national level."

Brick doesn’t hold back criticism for the IDF. "The deepest secret of the army, that they do everything to keep safe, is that what happens in the army stays there. They have been doing it with amazing success until today, until this Brick comes and bursts the bubble."

The outgoing chief of staff, Gadi Eizenkot, also took a hit from the retiring ombudsman: "As a chief of staff, the very fact that the system was not managed, that there was no supervision and monitoring - he did not enforce these things. This is a failure.”